Vengeance in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “I know you’re not,” Books replied. “I believe you. What can I say? What do you want to do, surrender? You know what would happen to us then. The citizens would hang us. We don’t have a choice, people. We have to fight.”

  “The people on the other islands?”

  Books shrugged. “I’m open for suggestions.”

  “What you’re sayin’ is, they’ve had it.”

  “I’m afraid so. But there is a bright spot. They’ll kill a lot of Rebels before they pack it in. So they’ll be less for us to fight.”

  One gang member recently from Molokai wanted to tell Books that as far as he knew, no Rebel had even been wounded, much less killed. But he kept his mouth closed. He knew Books was right. They had to fight. They just didn’t have a choice in the matter.

  Books picked up a sheet of paper. “The Rebels have landed on Lanai. Then I think they’ll hit Maui, then the big island, then they’ll strike at Kauai and us simultaneously. We’ve got a lot of work to do and not much time to do it. Let’s get at it, people.”

  “Eight to Nine,” Therm radioed.

  “Go, Eight,” Tina replied.

  “What is your situation?”

  “Bogged down for the moment. These people are putting up a stiffer fight than those on Molokai.”

  “Same here. And it’ll get tougher with each island. Hold what you’ve got, Therm. Let’s set up mortars and start softening them up.”

  “That’s affirmative. At your signal.”

  Mortar crews quickly set up and at Tina’s signal, the two battalions started dropping in a mixed bag of 60mm mortars. They pounded enemy positions for thirty relentless minutes, then dropped in smoke and the Rebels surged out of cover and moved forward. But the thugs and punks had lost their taste for battle under the barrage and had fled, many of them losing their weapons in their haste to get the hell gone. Those weapons were picked up, cleaned off, and given to the former slaves who had joined in the fight. Those that still had the strength to stand. The bodies of the enemy were left where they were sprawled. They would be buried or burned later.

  The two battalions linked and headed for Lanai City. Therm and Tina both ordered the locals who had joined their battalions to head for the brush and take care of their former captors. They smiled and said they would be delighted to do so.

  “No doubt,” Therm muttered.

  The Rebels pressed on, meeting a large group of men, women, and children streaming up the highway.

  “They are waiting for you in the town,” an old man with snow-white hair told the Rebels. “They are in a panic. When we saw them rushing into the town, we slipped out. They paid us no attention at all. They are all very frightened now. But I think they will fight to the death.”

  “Stay here,” Tina told the man. “We’ll set up a medical tent and see to your needs.”

  “We have sick with us,” the old man said. “But if you will arm us, we will leave the road and seek out those who fled. You will not have to worry about them.”

  “Don’t ever let anyone take your guns again,” Tina told the group, as they were being armed with what the Rebels had picked up along the way and taken from the dead.

  “You do not have to worry about that,” the elderly man assured her. He straightened up, tall and proud. “We are now part of General Raines’s Rebels.”

  “Amazing,” Therm muttered. “Just the mention of his name puts steel in the backbone.”

  “You’ve never understood that, have you, Therm?” Emil said, wiping the sweat from his face.

  “Oh, I understand it. It’s just astonishes me that so many people are so eager to fight and possibly die for a man they have never seen. And before you say it, Emil, I know it is the man, and not the cause.”

  “It’s both,” the little con artist replied. “You and the general, Therm, you’re a lot alike. Whether you’ll admit it or not.”

  “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

  “Nope. Just a fact.”

  Therm smiled. “Perhaps you’re right, Emil. Perhaps you’re right.”

  At the small town of Lanai City, located almost directly in the center of the island, the two battalions of Rebels threw a loose circle around the town and began the wait. The hours dragged on and the outlaw defenders of the town began to sweat. There were few shots fired, for no one on either side offered a target, especially the Rebels. The only casualties were among the defenders and they were self-inflicted, a half-dozen outlaws choosing suicide rather than being handed over to the citizens to face a sure hanging.

  Tina and Thermopolis held their battalions and waited.

  “We can take all the time we need,” Ben said, after reading Tina’s short dispatch. “Starve the bastards out.” He turned to West, seating in front of his desk. “What’s the word on the creepies? I was under the impression the place was crawling with them.”

  “Intelligence says they are concentrated on the big island. Some sort of deal was struck with the outlaws and pirates. Peaceful coexistence and all that crap. The Believers have massive breeding farms on the big island.”

  “How many are we facing, West?”

  “Thousands,” the mercenary said. “Prisoners confirm that. This is their last bastion.”

  Corrie walked in—none of Ben’s personal team ever knocked—and laid a dispatch on his desk. Ben noticed the worried look on her face.

  “From General Jefferys at Base Camp One,” she said, pointing to the paper. “And it’s bad.”

  Ben picked up the paper and read aloud. “Extremely large force, estimated size several divisions, on the march from central South America. Expected to reach the southern borders of Mexico in four to five months. General Payon is moving his entire army to the borders. General Payon says there is no way that he can hold for very long.”

  “Shit!” Ben said. “Corrie, get Cecil on the horn and ask him to define division size. Is he talking about prewar size? My God, even if he’s talking about light divisions, that would mean a corps size of approximately fifty thousand troops. Where did they come from? Who is in charge? How well equipped are they? I need more than this, Corrie.”

  “I’ll get right on it, sir.”

  Ben cut his eyes to West. The mercenary arched one eyebrow. “All that chatter we heard rounding South America. We listened to them and they listened to us. They deliberately fed us nonsense, all the while carefully plotting our course.”

  “Probably,” Ben agreed. “But fifty thousand troops? Get the batt comms in here, West. By the time you round them up, Corrie will have Cec on the horn and we’ll know more about this situation.”

  Ike helicoptered in from the convoy at Ben’s orders. The battalion commanders sat in Ben’s office, waiting for Corrie to receive and decode and Beth to type up Cecil’s message. It was anything but good.

  “Read it, Beth,” Ben said.

  “Preliminary reports place the army in excess of fifty thousand men. At least three and possibly four full-sized divisions. Resistance fighters in central South America report them to be Nazis.”

  “Nazis!” Ike almost shouted the word. “Hell, the last of those people died years ago.”

  “But their dream didn’t,” Ben said. “We’ve known for years that in certain sections of South America Hitler’s ideology was flourishing. Before the Great War a very large Hitler Youth movement was growing. Go on, Beth.”

  “Four or five months to reach the borders of Mexico is not realistic, General Jefferys states. More like eight months to a year. The divisions include much heavy armor, and they’re having fuel problems since the tanks are diesel and roads down there have deteriorated badly. The troops are supported by many helicopter gunships, make and model unknown, but resembling the old Russian Mi-24 Hind.”

  “Damn!” Striganov said.

  “How many gunships?” Ben asked.

  “A very large number. Intelligence reports just in state that factories in South America are producing about fifteen a month.”

  “F
or how many years?” Ike asked.

  “Doesn’t say, sir.”

  “Go on, Beth.”

  Before she could continue, Corrie ran in. “More, sir.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “Confirm that troops are wearing the lightning bolt or the death’s-head insignia on their uniforms. They are Nazis, sir.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Rebet said.

  “Stay with the radios,” Ben said, holding out his hand for the reports. He read them and leaned back in his chair, hand-rolling one of his rare cigarettes. “Well,” he finally said, “we’ve fought everything else over the years. No reason to doubt the reemergence of the Nazi party. Hell, it never really died. I’ll have Cec send Spanish-speaking Rebels down into Mexico, with General Payon’s permission, of course, to assess the situation. We need first-hand, eyes-on information. At least we have some time on this one. Cec can radio all the outposts and have them send people in. That will give us another couple of thousand Rebels. Approximately two and a half more battalions.”

  “Against fifty thousand,” Danjou said. “And you can bet they are highly trained.”

  “Oh, yes,” Ben agreed. “No doubt about that. They’ve had years to do it. Let’s get it wrapped up here, people, with minimum losses. We’ve got the biggest battle we’ve ever faced looking right over our shoulders.” He paused, then added very dryly, “With the deaths of millions of innocent people waving on the banners they so proudly march under.”

  THREE

  The news of the impending invasion against what had been known as the United States swept through the Rebel ranks. With that news, knowing they had to wrap this up and do it quickly, the battalions of Tina and Thermopolis hit the small town of Lanai City with a fury that scared the defenders so badly many of them threw down their weapons and refused to fight. They sat on the ground, their hands in the air, dread in their hearts, and crap in their pants. Those who resisted died very quickly, the Rebels showing them no mercy. Those thugs, pirates, and other assorted crap who had chosen to run to the brush were never heard or seen again. The citizens of the islands, now freed, disposed of them, stacked their bodies in piles, and burned them. The islands of Lanai and Molokai were clear.

  All prisoners were taken to Molokai and placed under the guard of citizens. A few decided to test their captors. They were shot dead without hesitation. The crap and crud of the islands were learning very quickly that Ben Raines and his Rebels, and the citizens who had joined the movement, had very little compassion for those who turned to a life of crime. Trials were held almost immediately, and those accused of the most heinous of crimes were hanged in full view of the prisoners. To say that watching their fellow cohorts in crime dangling from the end of a rope and kicking their life away had an extremely traumatic effect on them would be a gross understatement.

  Ben and his batt comms began planning the invasion of Maui. Special-ops teams had already been sent in and had linked up with citizen resistance groups. It was very disheartening for the thugs and pirates and slavers to wake up in the morning and see the heads of friends stuck up on poles outside their houses, eyes bulging and faces frozen in horror in that last moment of life. Those who had chosen a life of crime were learning very quickly that the Rebels played by no rulebook and that they did not give a damn for a criminal’s so-called rights. If they had been expecting lawyers and appeals and fine points of law, they soon learned they had no rights, there were no lawyers, and to fight the Rebels meant death. It was the most demoralizing situation the criminals had ever found themselves facing.

  On the island of Oahu, the gang leaders went over plans, checked their heavily fortified installations, and waited. Many had tossed away their plans to split up into small groups to combat the Rebels. Quite a few of those who had split up and disappeared into the rural areas had never been heard from again. They had fallen victim to the many citizen resistance groups that had been formed and now roamed the countryside outside the cities and towns, looking for their former captors.

  All in all, summed up a gang leader named Wee Willie, it was a really lousy situation.

  ***

  Ben made a final inspection of Molokai and Lanai and was satisfied that the islands were clean of crud. He knew that a few had escaped back into the brush, but they posed very little threat and would eventually be flushed out by the citizens and killed. The finer points of law were being ignored. One either was with the Rebels or was against them. For the moment, to choose the latter meant death.

  A link had been established between Base Camp One on the mainland and General Payon’s command post in Mexico. Teams of Spanish-speaking Rebels had been sent down to the front lines along the border of Guatemala and Belize. So far, the Nazi divisions had not yet reached Central America, but they would. There was nothing to stop them.

  The Nazi divisions would be the largest, the most highly trained and best-equipped army the Rebels had ever faced, and Ben wasn’t all that sure his people could contain them. They had the heart, but not the numbers. So in his spare time he was busy drawing up contingency plans for an all-out guerrilla war should it come to that.

  On the mainland, Cecil had his people working feverishly caching supplies all over the country. Factories were being relocated, pulled back into the country’s heartland, and Base Camp One was being turned into a death trap for anyone foolish enough to blunder into it.

  Ben knew one thing for a dead bang certainty: he had to wrap up the Hawaiian campaign in plenty of time to sail back to the mainland and get his people in place for a major confrontation. The thugs and crud and crap on the islands were an annoyance, a boil that had to be lanced, but the Nazi divisions were a cancer; stop them soon, or the patient would die. And the patient was liberty.

  Tina and Therm’s battalions would launch against Maui from the island of Lanai. Ben’s battalion and three others would strike from Molokai, the other battalions remaining in reserve. He told the Rebels to gear up; they were moving out that night and would strike in the predawn hours.

  Special-ops people started moving out just after dusk. When they got about five miles from the island, they would start fanning out and go ashore in small teams, all of them heavy with explosives and ammo, and light on food. Buddy was leading the first team in.

  “Ashore,” he bumped his father’s CP back on Molokai.

  “Affirmative,” he received the one-word acknowledgment.

  Buddy stowed the radio, and he and his Rat team slipped past the beach and into the tangled overgrowth of brush and palms and kiawe trees. The other teams would not make contact with him unless they ran into trouble they could not handle. All special-ops teams carried silenced weapons and each carried spare sound suppressors for pistol and assault weapon. They were also very proficient with wire and knife, and they could kill with their bare hands. Dan Gray had seen to that.

  They had gone into an area that once had been crowded with tourists. Now the fine hotels loomed in front of them like giant, many-eyed monsters, staring blankly at them in the gloom. Buddy’s team was made up of four men and three women, not counting himself. Diane, Judy, and Anita. Pete, Harold, Roy, and Carson. They had worked together for a long time, and each knew what the others would do in any given circumstance. They all froze at the sound of talking off to their right. Without having to be told, Pete and Diane slipped into the darkness, their specially made soft-soled boots making no sound.

  Several very faint chugging sounds drifted back to the remainder of the team. Seconds later, Pete and Diane slipped back and squatted down.

  “Machine-gun emplacement,” Pete whispered. “We pulled the bodies back into the brush.”

  “Good,” Buddy whispered. “Let’s go place some charges and make some noise.”

  From Lahaina to Honokohau, dark shapes with cameo-painted faces were flitting through the night. They left behind them sudden death. They planted their charges and then slipped back into cover, waiting for the main assault force to arrive.

  The Ha
waiian leaders had told Ben, “We will not know tourist trade again in our lifetime. Probably not in our children’s lifetimes. The cities are useless to us, as are the fine hotels. Bring them down if you want to. We must return to the land for our survival.”

  Just before dawn, moments before the main body of Rebels struck, those outlaws who had decided to dig in and fight were going to be in for a large surprise.

  The other gang leaders on the other islands had voted down Books Houseman’s suggestion to break up into small groups to fight the Rebels. They had decided to fight them in a conventional manner.

  “Fools!” Books had said.

  One of the few gang leaders who had managed to escape the wrath of the Rebels in Los Angeles and had just now agreed to throw in with Books looked at him. “I tell you what we better do.”

  Books looked at him and waited.

  “We better just stick the muzzle of a gun in our mouths and pull the trigger. ’Cause we ain’t gonna beat Ben Raines. I was in northern California, and I was in L.A. You don’t know how this man operates.”

  “Then why did you pitch in with us?” Vic Keeler asked.

  The L.A. punk shrugged his shoulders. ‘If I gotta die, I might as well die among friends . . . or at least them that live like I do.”

  But Books was paying little attention to Keeler or the street punk. He had read and reread the message from communications. He didn’t know whether to believe it or not. An extremely large force was moving up toward the United States from South America. And communications had concluded that they were Nazis. Nazis! Books’s father hadn’t even been born when all that mess was going on. Nazis!

  He drummed his fingertips on the desk. If they were Nazis, Books Houseman sure as hell didn’t want to get tied up with them. His mother had been a Jew. He remembered his grandfather—just barely—but enough to recall the old man telling horror stories about the Nazis.